A Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing

This timely volume represents one of the first comprehensive, student-oriented guides to the under-published field of early modern women’s writing. It brings together new work by twenty-four of the best contemporary scholars who are pushing forward the boundaries of scholarship on early modern women's writing from both sides of the Atlantic. The contributions balance a specific focus on individual texts with a broader examination of the relevant social and cultural contexts of early modern women's writing, its generic diversity and some of the main theoretical questions that underpin its study. Ten key texts are considered, along with the major genres in which early modern women wrote and the theoretical issues to which their work gives rise. The volume provides readers with a clear sense of the full extent of women's contributions to literary culture in early modern Britain. It will be welcomed by all those who teach courses on women writers and early modern women writers, and by those who wish to integrate more women writers into their Renaissance courses.